Essays and Addresses

Abstract

THIS book is due to the natural desire of the teaching staff of the Owens College to have some memorial of an event of the first importance in their own history, and to give expression to the hopes that animate the institution. The Owens College was founded by a single legacy a quarter of a century ago—for the creation of a college in which Lancashire lads might study at home the “branches of learning commonly taught in the English Universities.” It first became known in connection with its first Principal, Scott, a writer who has left nothing which explains the high rank he held among his contemporaries and especially the influence he unquestionably exercised over every young man with whom he was brought into contact. Under him, however, the College did not flourish—the number of the day students sank at one time as low as 25—and it was only after the appointment of the present Principal, Dr. Greenwood, that it began to take root in Manchester. It has now about 350 day students—not including the medical students, who have been added only this session—and nearly 800 evening students. Curiously enough, what happened in Glasgow to the disappointment of many of the well-wishers of the University, happened also in Manchester. When the new buildings, with all their increased convenience for study, were opened, it seemed natural to anticipate a great increase of students. Nothing of the kind took place. Students seem to come and go to college because they want to be taught, not because they are to have beautiful buildings to be taught in. The effect will certainly be considerable, alike on teachers and on taught, of the more commodious buildings recently erected in Glasgow and in Manchester, and it will be felt more and more as time goes on. The fact that it is not felt at first shows, however, that the wants that are satisfied by university teaching lie so deep down that an external event like the inauguration of new buildings scarcely influences them.

Essays and Addresses.

By Professors and Lecturers of the Owens College, Manchester. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1874.)